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Pamela Moore’s first book was published in 1956 when she was 18 years old and became an international bestseller in its day. Chocolates for Breakfast follows the coming-of-age of a 15 year old girl named Courtney as she moves between boarding school and her divorced parents in New York and Hollywood. At first a model student, Courtney gradually falls in with a privileged and jaded set, who drink heavily and take pride in their sexual sophistication.

After a crush on her boarding-school English teacher leads to heartbreak, Courtney beds a bisexual Hollywood actor and then a dissolute European aristocrat living out of a luxury hotel in Manhattan. Chocolates for Breakfast includes frank discussion of sexuality and gender roles that was, for that era, uncommon.

But her first lover abandons her to return to his male companion, and Courtney uses a razor blade to cut the inside joints of her fingers — one of the earliest depictions of adolescent self-cutting in literature. The next scene is of Courtney being discharged from a psychiatric hospital (Her two-month stay there is not described.)

The setting of the novel travels from Rosemary Hall (now part of Choate) in New England, to the Garden of Allah in Hollywood, to establishment landmarks of mid-century Manhattan such as P. J. Clarke’s, the Plaza hotel, and the Stork Club.

The novel is considered to be autobiographical, largely based on Moore’s life from ages 15 to 16 (circa 1953 — 1954.)

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Sondra in the novel is closely based on the Pamela’s mother, Isabel Moore, an editor at Photoplay magazine who counted Joan Crawford and Marilyn Monroe among her acquaintances. Isabel Moore authored many books under her own and various pen names, including The Day the Communists Took Over America (Isabel Moore, 1961) ; The Sex Cure — Doctors who mix Medicine and Women (as Elaine Dorian, 1962) ; The Girl From Aquarius (as Dani Lawrence, 1970); and many others.

Pamela Moore’s father was Don W. Moore, who edited stories for the pulp fiction magazine Argosy, wrote for the comic strip Flash Gordon, and later worked as a scriptwriter and producer on Rawhide and several other T.V. series. Don Moore co-authored with Commander Francis Douglas Fane The Naked Warriors (1956), one of the first books ever written about the force later known as the Navy SEALs.

The character of Anthony Neville may have been partly modeled on the British aesthete and adventurer Michael “Dandy Kim” Caborn-Waterfield, who lived out of the Plaza Hotel while reportedly running arms for the Batista revolution in Cuba.

I absolutely love the book Chocolates for Breakfast and have also read The Horsy Set!!!!. Love her style! The writing style is so much like Salinger. Was Pamela a fan of JD Salinger? I’ve read all of his books too and his daughter wrote some material that I love as well. I plan to read some more Pamela Moore books. I’m Curious as to the last book “Kathy On The Rocks”, is is still nonpublished? If there is any way it can be put up on a site in embedded text not yet published I’d love to see it. Keep me informed and send me a link if there is any material.

When I was in my early twenties, probably not too long after Chocolates for Breakfast was published, a young lady I dated gave me a copy and insisted I read it. I don’t remember being at all shocked. But I did have many pleasant fantasies about getting together with the author, as well as imagining hot torrid afternoons with Francoise Sagan. Alas they’re both gone. Looks like it’ll never happen. I also had fantasies about the Rockettes (sp?) and they’re still around. Who knows?

What’s the chance of getting a copy of the French version that’s been translated into English? Never got past my first year French.

@Dan:I don’t know of any plans to bring the book back into print, although the degree of interest on this site and on Facebook has been very encouraging.

[Update: the book will be reissued by Harper Perennial in July 2013]

You’re right that the French edition, like the Italian which was based on it, contains material that didn’t appear in the US, consisting mostly of critiques of American society and culture, delivered first by Miss Rosen to Courtney, and then by Courtney to everyone else. The French “nouvelle edition,” as it was called, does NOT include the passages that were cut from the original manuscript submitted to the US publisher. Unlike the material added into the “nouvelle edition,” the pages cut from the manuscript consisted mostly of dialogue about taboo topics and sensual descriptions of Courtney’s feelings for Miss Rosen and others.

@Marina:
All content on this website is indeed copyright by the original artists or authors of the work. For a purely educational project, for example, limited use of the materials would be covered under “Fair Use,” at least in the U.S. Feel free to email me at [kevin] at [this website] regarding your project, and any specific writing or photographs you might want to use, and I’ll try to get you whatever information I can to help you track down the holders of those copyrights.

Very glad to see this website! I hope there are plans afoot to bring the books back into print?

And by chance: can I ask what the differences are between the French and the English versions of Chocolates for Breakfast? I know there are passages in the French that aren’t in the English – what are they?

Robert Lund sent me your way and a worthwhile journey it’s been reading about Pamela Moore. You’ve managed to present her life and work extraordinarily well, indeed. This fascinating figure, this young woman whose audacity should be publicized, this rebel of the 50’s meatloaf era. Another book I’m hungry to read. Well, thanks! I’m hip.

When I was in high school (1960) a copy of Chocolates for Breakfast was passed around with certain page marked as “must reads.” I recall reading a few pages to someone on the phone…. don’t recall why. 50 years later I can still remember the name of that book, but not any of the content.

@ Lisa:
I don’t know if the book is “rare” per se — except for the first edition, worth $800 to $1000– but I have noticed prices climbing over time. Still, if you check Alibris, Amazon and Abes books, you should be able to find a US or UK edition for less than $30.

@ Jennifer:
I guess the 50s were both of those things and more besides. I went through the archives lately and found rejection letters sent to Pamela’s agent at the time (Monica McCall) for a proposed serialization in magazines like Redbook, Ladies Home Journal. “Not right for our magazine or any other,” reads one response. “Heroine finds stability but has not been sufficiently punished for her wayward life of sin,” things like that. The depiction of attraction between women and between a woman and a bisexual man was especially troubling to these folks.

I found this site while looking for a copy of the book to buy. Even the paperbacks are over 30 dollars! Is this a Rare book?

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Historical Editions

Since its publication in 1956, Chocolates for Breakfast has been translated into a dozen languages, including French, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, German, Japanese and Swedish. It was a bestseller in the US, Italy and France. In the US, the Bantam paperback edition went through 11 printings and sold over a million copies in the 1950s and '60s. The 18th edition of the Italian translation, Cioccolata a Colazione, lists the total number of copies sold in Italy as of 1966 at 408,000. Cioccolata remained continuously in print in Italy through the early 2000s.

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Recent Reissues

In July of 2013, Chocolates for Breakfast was reissued in the U.S. by Harper Perennial. Since then, editions have been published or announced in the following countries / by the following publishers: